War Caster vs. Resilient (CON)

Comparing the War Caster and Resilient (CON) feats to determine which one gives a bigger boost to maintaining concentration on a spell.

Is Oath of Heroism OP?

The Oath of Heroism Paladin subclass is D&D's latest Unearthed Arcana playtest release. While the mythological flavor is incredible, the subclass gets some goodies that were historically only available by multiclassing: expanded critical range, Haste as an oath spell, and free attacks. How does this add up to a standard Paladin? We ran the numbers.

Bag of Holding Fish Tank

How long can a sahuagin live in a water-filled Bag of Holding?

Breath Weapon Dice Pools

Torching the whole party with a dragon's breath weapon is one of the most fun moments as a Dungeon Master. How can we tweak this rule to have greater control over its power and establish ludonarrative harmony?

How Often Do Critical Hits Underperform?

Critical Hits are often the subject of homebrew rules. Driven by the perception that critical hits frequently underperform, these homebrew rules juice up the damage of critical hits to a more impressive level. They're often implemented after a player waits 20 rolls (on average) to score a critical hit that lands with a thud. But, is this underperformance a reflection of perception or reality?

Pole Position: PAM over GWM

Why to take the Polearm Master feat before the Great Weapon Master feat.

Artificer: Cantrips vs. Crossbows

Examining damage outputs of cantrips vs. crossbows for the new Unearthed Arcana Artificer. It seems crossbows can outscale cantrips, but at what cost?

Lucky Feat: RAW vs. RAI

After last's week post calculating the success odds for the Lucky feat, some folks who run the Lucky feat a little differently asked me to run the odds on that iteration. Since this homerule is popularly employed, including by D&D Lead Rules Designer Jeremy Crawford, we're running the odds and evaluating the comparison.

Feeling Lucky?

Analyzing the benefits of the various luck-driven abilities in 5th Edition D&D: Lucky feat, Diviner's Portent dice, and the Halfling Lucky racial feature. How do they stack up?

Two-Weapon Fighting Calcs

Over the past couple weeks, we've looking into issues with Two-Weapon Fighting and solutions to fix Two-Weapon Fighting. While discussing potential solutions is a good starting place, theorycrafting can often fall flat at the table. In order to identify which systems are the most balanced and deserve testing, you've got to run the numbers. The … Continue reading Two-Weapon Fighting Calcs →